Proudly, a Veteran-Owned Business
The Art of Building a Business with Creatives
When creative brilliance meets business acumen, magic happens. For over a decade, CRRNT has helped transform The New Blank from a promising design shop into an industry-defining production powerhouse. From commercials to key art, film titles to experiential displays, we've proven that you can build a thriving business without sacrificing an ounce of creative soul.
CLIENT
The New Blank
DATE
Aug 2014 - Present
SERVICES
Management consulting,
brand strategy, digital
transformation, sales, social & marketing strategies
POSITION
15%
When the pandemic hit, I stepped into a full-time role at The New Blank to provide an increased focus and provide relief from consulting fees at a time when the market was shutting down.
TNB was coming off our best year yet, and we were trending upward, profitable, winning --- and creating some amazing work. And thanks to pre-pandemic infrastructure investments, we were able to work remotely while still meeting strict security requirements for our entertainment and gaming clients.
We secured a series of SMB loans and grant products through the state of Washington and completed a successful friends and family capital raise. We also formalized two new lines of business: Flex and Managed Services, in addition to TNB’s core Bespoke motion graphics, 3D, and video production business. Here are a few work selects that will wet your palette.
Marking 10 years in 2024, my role at The New Blank is transitioning back to fractional CEO in 2025 while maintaining core responsibilities, supporting strategic sales, pitch support, business strategy, partnerships, marketing consulting & our Epic Games relationship. At times over the years, it's been a wild ride, I’m excited to see where the future takes us!
The Shifting Economic Tides
“You Should Meet These Guys!”
We know that some of the strongest relationships in life come from chance encounters. A mutual professional connection told me, "You should meet these guys," and as it turns out, the co-founders of The New Blank had a similar sentiment expressed to them. That chance meeting set a partnership in motion, and it was formalized in August 2014.
We also know that building a solid relationship is the first step in any successful venture; project or deeply integrated partnership like exists between CRRNT and The New Blank. And let's face it, stepping into a senior leadership position embedded in a boutique, highly creative shop is not for the faint of heart. It's hard as hell, especially when we’re looking to transform and grow a small, undercapitalized business that isn’t well known.
But together, we can achieve the impossible. Never shying away from a challenge, CRRNT is determined to help TNB reach their full potential. Let's do this!
Evaluating The Investment
As part of our Ventures Portfolio, CRRNT provides access to expertise and resources in marketing, branding, consulting, fundraising, products, experiences, and more in exchange for equity.
Over the years, the services CRRNT applied to The New Blank (TNB) shifted as the needs of business and market evolved. Strategically weighted investments were much heavier earlier on aimed at tackling more critical components the business and brand needed to modernize and prepare for growth. This ensured results are realized not only to The New Blank, but to their employees, customers, and partners alike.
The framework requires a team effort, is highly collaborative, and is integrated throughout the business. It’s built on trust, shared risk, and the autonomy to make ongoing decisions in the best interest of TNB and our stated goals.
Relationship Summary
The investment criteria for The New Blank would not have inked out in standard investment consultancies or accelerators. While there were a number of factors including a strategic fit into the village of brands CRRNT is assembling to create immersive experiences, platforms, and products, three of my main factors were:
1. The caliber of the work:
2. The caliber of the humans; the co-founders in particular:
3. They’re veterans, they’re former Navy veterans, and ride motorcycles like me.
Contributors
Chuck Granade
Business Strategist, CEO
Lando Febuary
Creative Director
Pete Gade
Brand & Content Strategist
Joel Eby
Partner, Executive Creative Director
Bobby Hougham
TNB Executive Creative Director
Sevrin Daniels
TNB Executive Creative Director
Ryan Scott
UX Designer
Jefe Birkner
Search & Keyword Strategist
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The Challenge
Like many small businesses, particularly in the creative services, agencies, and video production markets, The New Blanks (TNB) monthly revenue chart looked like a blueprint for world’s scariest rollercoaster. When reviewing and analyzing year-over-year (YOY) financials, there appeared to be predictable times of the year where TNB was underwater with too much work; other times of the year – crickets. Adding additional pressure on the business was typically little or no visibility on inbound projects, making resource planning extremely taxing and inefficient.
TNB used to treat each project, regardless of the budget or timeline like it was a piece of art. The financials came as a distant second priority. We also used to give work away for free, mostly in support of sales through storyboards and pitches. TNB has also felt the pinch from creator economy; an ecosystem of tools, platforms, and innovations enabling freelancers and co-creators to do work traditionally supported by companies like The New Blank not to mention the surge of companies insourcing; building internal video, motion graphic and content teams.
Putting yet another layer of strain on TNB’s revenue volatility was the lack of financial rigor and a focus on overall performance one might expect from any two well intentioned co-founding senior creatives that have allergic reactions to most things that don’t include designing, animating, or telling visual stories. A few examples include marketing, sales, business process, financial rigor, customer -- and employee experiences.
Cool Guys Photoshoot: Bobby and Sevrin
Symptomatic of boutique post-production companies & mid-sized agencies.
The investment in traditional sales has never worked out. Like most production companies, TNB relied heavily on the sales rep model. Bobby and Sevrin expressed frustration and bewilderment with their inability to grow the business through fractional sales reps and their executive producers over the years.
But we know that not have the right sales rep by itself is not always the lone culprit not to mention growing businesses in today’s modern marketplace is incredibly more complex than finding the right sales rep. Let's be real, there’s much more nowadays that goes into a net new clients decision making process that the relationship had with sales or business development.
"Clients can’t see what we do? It’s right there in the reel"
Sevrin Daniels, Co-Founder
Low-hanging fruit evaluation criteria like price, perception, creativity, relevant experience, and market shifts combined with the pandemic influenced the inability to realize growth. In the end, clients still look for partners to add business value, even in the video production industry.
Bobby & Sevrin’s pain points :
1) Lackluster sales, no growth: They wanted to grow but not sell their souls to the devil. TNB was a ~$900k YOY business, with its best year being ~$1.5M. They wanted growth but did not want to sacrifice values.
2) Lack of brand awareness and capabilities: The local market hardly knew TNB existed, and their clients didn't fully understand their capabilities. There was a general lack of understanding of their capabilities. It ranged from prospective clients having a size bias to not being able to handle large—massively gnarly gigs or not knowing we can help more broadly and strategically than most of our clients remember.
3) Expand from pure Entertainment Marketing: The New Blank had built up a stellar name in the entertainment market but almost exclusively relied on it. Being so dependent on entertainment was a high risk for the business.
Modernize
We believe modernization is key for small businesses to grow, going beyond mere "Digital Transformation" to apply a tailored mix of strategic services. For TNB, this meant overhauling their visual identity, refreshing their website and social strategy, and implementing a customized CRM solution, all aimed at positioning the company for future success.
Humanize
This strategic pillar focused on authentically introducing potential clients to TNB's co-founders, Bobby and Sevrin, addressing the brand's awareness problem by showcasing their work, professional writing, and personalities. While this approach is common today, it was innovative in 2014, making it a valuable part of our growth strategy for TNB, especially given the co-founders' high caliber as both professionals and individuals.
Stabilize
We focused on stabilizing key areas of TNB's business, including finances, processes, and client relationships, while nurturing our unique culture and team. This involved overhauling delivery processes, bid transparency, financial controls, creating an owned-media initiative, client loyalty program, and more recently, building a credit profile to access capital and move beyond a cash-on-hand business model.
Diversify
In late 2022 and early 2023, we diversified TNB's offerings by adding two new lines of business: Flex (high-volume content creation for medium to large enterprises) and Managed Services (marketing consulting), complementing their existing Bespoke services. These additions aim to diversify TNB's revenue, with Managed Services growing 300% in the first three years and Flex already serving major clients like Netflix Games, addressing the ongoing content needs of companies facing various resource constraints.
THE STRATEGY
Modernize, Humanize, Stabalize & Diversify
The growth strategy we've crafted and implemented for TNB that goes beyond mere revenue management. We've transformed every aspect of the business, from market positioning, delivery and financial processes to the back office, making TNB "Hard to Kill". This approach has fortified TNB against market volatility and economic storms, enabling it to weather the pandemic while not making a single layoff.
While we're still on the journey, our nimble and determined strategy has transformed TNB into a resilient business, capable of thriving in uncertainty. The proof? TNB celebrated its 15th birthday in August 2022, standing stronger than ever.
“…The New Blank is one of the most creative shops in the country…”
Bill Ronan
Producer, Publicis
"Working with The New Blank… was nothing less than brilliant to connect with the thoughtful, talented, organized team at TNB."
Marisa Powell-Schoen
Brooks Running
“The whole team at TNB consists of a bunch of creative and production maniacs!”
Scott Hayman
COO, Hammer Creative
TNB Customer Testimonials
The New Blank could toot their own horn, but they'd rather let our clients do the tooting. Check out these rave reviews from businesses they've catapulted into awesomeness. No paid actors, just real people high on success (and maybe a little caffeine).
WHAT WE DID
Bespoke Transformation Plan for a Bespoke Crew
CRRNT conducted an in-depth, multi-pronged business review which incorporated customer and client feedback to unearth additional aspects of the business that needed varying degrees of investment and improvement. We then added market research and trends to inform a strategy and supporting tactics for growth, all while keeping our customer and employees squarely in focus. But it’s more than building a killer plan.
WHAT WE DID
We Began Behaving Like a Business
The New Blank was founded and run by two designers who, understandably, never developed a passion for the business side of their creative company. To address this, we implemented financial rigor by reducing free work, setting gross margin goals, refining delivery processes and estimates, and integrating collaboration tools and technology stacks.
Reduced the investment of free pitch work to win work
Audited costs, reduced waste, improved financial rigor
Strengthened bids, resourcing, and pitching
WHAT WE DID
Rebranded a Branding Agency
Rebranding The New Blank was a delicate process, given Bobby and Sevrin's expertise in design and branding. To pull it off, we incorporated authentic aspects of their personalities - their love for design, music, motorcycles, and skateboarding - into various areas of the business and brand. This approach informed everything from brand photography and our messaging to the tone of our social content, creating a cohesive and authentic brand identity.
Branding, marketing, content, and social strategy
Website Design and Information Architecture
Owned media initiative to spur organic traffic
WHAT WE DID
Investing in our Crew and Customers
We prioritized investing in people by developing a strategic structure to foster loyalty among employees, clients, and partners. This approach went beyond simple gift-giving, focusing on meaningful connections that aligned with TNB's brand and values. With a clearly articulated and modernized brand in place, we were able to create engaging customer and employee experience frameworks. We drew inspiration from the co-founders' personal interests and histories, such as Sevrin's former skateboard shop and Bobby's mixology hobby, to create unique and authentic touch points in our loyalty strategy.
Employee Experience (EX)
We focused on crew retention through a thriving culture, high job satisfaction, a more cohesive crew dynamic and fostering a creative environment where people thrived and innovation flourishes.
Customer Experience (CX)
Our CX framework aligns authentic TNB brand essence which has lead to stronger relationships, increased repeat business, ultimately driving sustainable growth and market differentiation. TNB keeps more customers.
WHAT WE DID
Make us Hard to Kill: Diversify
One of the underlying business challenges for The New Blank has been revenue volatility. In other words, TNB’s Bespoke business of custom branding, motion graphics, and video production is cyclical. 3-4 months before a broadcast or streaming show airs, we’re typically busy creating promo’s, sizzles, game trailers, branding or graphic packages. When we’re busy, we’re slammed. When we’re thirsty for work the slow, unpredictable nature of it feels like trying drinking sand in a desert.
The solution, diversify revenue with two complimentary service groups to Bespoke; one day soon, we’ll add products too. Introducing “Flex” and Managed Services.
Flex
Whereas Bespoke is custom, Flex provides top-flight creative at unmatched quality and cost. From videos to brand assets and digital doodads of all stripes, this is high-quality content that flexes with your budget, timeline, and production volume. The key to any Flex project is the way TNB hooks clients up with a mix of top-notch talent and capabilities—and then dial them up or down as needed for always awesome video and content production.
Design, write, and produce anywhere from one to umpteen killer videos that hit home—animated, live-action, or both. Our creative leads guide and collaborate the entire way.
Managed Services
A strategic pivot during Covid provides dedicated, senior, full-time video game marketing consulting or production crew embedded in your company.
This engagement structure helps companies manage cash effectively, keep costs low and have robust business continuity. It is through this lens that we have built and deployed, a managed services delivery model. The most obvious benefit of leveraging managed services is a lower operating cost, as we can scale to provide the required services to a company for less than it would cost the company to employ a full-time staff member to provide equivalent support or level of service.
TNB in Living Color
From napkin sketches to industry-shifting branding and storytelling, this gallery captures the essence of our partnership.
NOBL Foods: Disrupting the CPG Dog Food Market
Guardian Pet Foods approached CRRNT with their innovative dog meal bar, we didn't just help them fetch a new name – we unleashed a whole new brand identity.
Our work extended beyond mere naming, encompassing messaging, visual identity, packaging, eCommerce, product, and even brand architecture. The result? A disruptive brand that stood out in the crowded pet food market like a Great Dane at a Chihuahua convention.
VOXX Exhibits: Business Transformation and Market Launch
We orchestrated VOXX Exhibits' metamorphosis from a Nimlok franchise to an independent exhibit juggernaut, creating their name, visual identity, branding, messaging, digital presence, and market positioning.
Our ongoing partnership spans strategic consulting to M&A guidance and migrating their site to a no-code, AI headless solution.
ENTREPRENEUR FEATURED PORTFOLIO
Where Ideas Become
‘Holy Sh*t’ Case Studies
Warning: This portfolio contains examples of extreme business transformations.
Viewer discretion is advised.